Designer Joshua Balvin brings us into the world of 1849 California. What makes this location and time special? Well the previous winter gold was discovered! You and your opponents are wealthy investors ready to take advantage of discovery. As investors you can not get your hands dirty but you hire 49ers (not the football team) to do the hard work. As the smart business man or woman you must make important decisions on what locations to send them to grab gold and gems fast before the mines run dry. Can you risk sending miners to different locations at the same time or will you play it safe and place your miners at one location for the year? Time is of great importance and will wait for no one. After the winter of 1853 will you have made out like the monopoly guy or come up empty handed? Good luck you will need it.

Components From the box to the pick axe first player token Fool's Gold takes you into the 1849 gold rush. The game board is one of the sturdiest. well constructed boards I have seen and felt. Cards are easy to read and look like playing cards during that era. The miners are meeples in miner shapes with each player's color. The first player is identified by a wooden pick axe. Someone will do something goofy with the axe. I hurled it at another player's screen after he took the spot I wanted. The player screens are thick cardboard and have helpful information on the back, but also fall over very easily. Coins are your standard punch out cardboard coins. The dice are a light blue except for one white die that is used for winter. The rulebook is very clear and has lots of helpful illustrations. This allowed me to learn the game after one read through and be able to teach others. Fool's Gold does a great job of implementing the theme into their quality components.

Gameplay Fool's Gold puts you in charge of making tough decisions in this game of chance. The goal of Fool's Gold is to have the most victory points at the end of the game. To earn victory points you must mine gold and gems from each location. Each gold nugget is worth one victory point and gems are worth a certain amount depending on how many different ones you have collected. Fool's Gold is separated into two phases per year (round). First is the prospecting phase followed up by the mining phase. At the start of each year starting in 1950 (second round) players will receive one coin and miner to use for the rest of the game. Coins are always returned to you after each year but you must be wise with your coins because with more miners you are spreading the money thinner each year.

In the prospecting phase the person with the pick axe will roll all 10 light blue dice. You will then place the dice on the mining trail with the same number. Example: All dice showing one will go to the Hills. The first die of that number will go on the die image and then each die after will go on the next spot of the path till you get to the ones marked with a red box. You will not place any dice rolled on the red boxes till you player actions. Instead you will place them in the center with all dice that show a six. These are wild and can be used later. After placing all the dice, players will take turns performing one of four actions. Players can place one miner on an available mine trail space and paying the cost stated on that space. All coins spent on this and any other action are placed in front of your player screen. Players can also place one of those wild dice on an empty trail space. The cost is determined by how many dice were on that trail before you place this wild die.

The third action you can take is placing one miner in front of your screen and retrieving three coins from in front of your screen and placing them with your unused coins behind the screen. Finally if you have no other actions you want to take you can pass. Any miners left that have not been used can be placed as reserve miners. This is done by placing them next to any location deck of your choosing. After you place all your remaining miners you can take back all coins and miners that were placed in front of your screen. Once you pass you can not take any more actions this phase. Finally when everyone passes you move on to the mining phase.

There are three steps to the mining phase. First you are going to draw and reveal cards one at a time from the location deck assigned to that mining trail. The number of cards drawn is determined by total miners on the trail multiplied by the number of prospecting dice on the trail. The cards are sorted into 4 piles as they are revealed. Gold, gems, silt and false alarm cards each have their own piles. The last card is foul weather. This card when drawn reduces the number of cards drawn by one. So if you were supposed to draw 6 cards and your second card is a foul weather you will only draw 3 more cards. After all cards have been drawn shuffle the gold and false alarms together and remove cards equal to the amount of false alarms put in. The removed cards go back to the bottom of the deck while the remaining gold cards become available with any gem cards that were drawn. The useless silt and any cards not taken will go back into the deck after the year is over.

Once false alarms have been resolved players will use their miner's action one miner at a time. Priority is given to the player who has the most miners on the trail and reserve combined. If there is a tie then the miner on the highest numbered spot goes. The miner can choose to take one of the gold or gem cards. (note: players can only have one of each type of gem) If they decide to not take a card or one is not available they can take two coins from the bank or place their miner on their back signifying they are going to stay for winter. After the miner makes a decision we see who now has priority and they take their action and so on till all minors have taken an action on that trail. Resolve all trails and remove any miners and their reserves not staying for winter.

During the winter step, the miners with the lowest priority rolls the winter die. Draw cards from that location equal to the amount shown on the die. The player who has priority can then choose from the drawn cards. If there are no cards that he can claim then he places his miner back to his supply and will not be able to claim two coins for him. You either get a card or nothing as winter can be very harsh or forgiving. That is the risk of staying instead of getting two coins from the bank. After the winter step is resolved for each location you will move onto the next year. Once you have completed your fifth year the game ends and you will then total up your scores. Warning, the location that has the most gold nuggets for you was actually fool's gold and will not count towards your victory points. You also will receive negative five points for each location that you did not obtain gold from.

Final Thoughts Fool's Gold takes elements from push your luck, worker placement and set collection games and sifts through it to try and pull out a gold nugget. Did they accomplish this? In my opinion they did get gold with some silt as well. I liked the risky decisions of where and how many miners to play on any given trail. Do you place more miners at a location to try and get priority over another player and more cards to choose from or spread out and hope you get lucky on the draws. The choice of taking two coins or staying for winter is a rather big decision and risk. I have had it pay off huge with a gem or a four nugget card and I have had it not pay off and end up with nothing. I like that the end scoring will really punish you if you focus on one or two areas too much. The theme is felt by the art design and the shrinking amount of gold in each deck as the years go by. In 1853 it was a lot harder to get gold than it was in 1850 and this game translates that great. The card reveal is fun for the anticipation of what cards will be drawn and the reactions as things either go great or horribly wrong. Good thing the pick axe was wood and not metal...just saying. The game did feel a little repetitive and longer than I would have liked. This is not a game I see myself playing every game night but will be fun to pull out occasionally. The low amount of coins really makes you think and make tough decisions on where and how many miners to place. Do you go for quantity or quality with a higher priority. Fool's Gold has earned a spot in my collection. For a light to medium type game it was fun and one I could enjoy with players of many different ages.